Today, BlackBerry (the company formerly known as RIM) essentially put a nail in the PlayBook coffin by announcing that it would not be converted to the new Blackberry 10 OS. That mobile OS is clearly the future of the company. QNX, though, bought and now developed by BlackBerry, is the past.

In a Q1 2014 earnings press release, BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins outlined the company’s near-term strategy: “Throughout the remainder of fiscal 2014, the company will invest in BlackBerry 10 smartphone launches, and the roll out of BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10, to continue to establish the new BlackBerry 10 platform in the marketplace.”

It’s hard to know the number of PlayBooks BlackBerry sold. The company only reported “shipped” numbers, and I can’t recall seeing a single one ”in the wild.” It is telling, though, that Blackberry shipped 200,000 in late 2011 (300,000 off the analyst mark), and just 100,000 this past quarter. It was a business heading in the wrong direction.

What He Said

BlackBerry has not officially killed the PlayBook, but by telling consumers and PlayBook customers that they’re holding dead-end products, the company essentially ended the PlayBook brand. Heins knows this is bad news for those customers. "I made the difficult decision to stop these efforts and focus on our core hardware portfolio," he said during the earnings call on Friday. That core portfolio is mobile phones: the Z10 and newly released keyboard-sporting Q10, which both have the new OS. While they may not be receiving stellar reviews, Blackberry is shipping millions of them — a stronger indication of demand.

With this decision, Heins reneges on a promise he made almost exactly one year ago. When I spoke to the then still-relatively-new CEO last summer, he described the PlayBook as something of a qualified success, acknowledging the “bumpy road,” but saying that it had helped them prepare to build Blackberry 10.

Heins, who at the time traveled with his PlayBook, then told me that PlayBook would be ready for Blackberry 10 in 2013.

What This Means

Of course, PlayBook's fate has almost no bearing on the 7-inch tablet market. Amazon took almost the exact same design, but delivered a better platform and more holistic ecosystem of content and commerce, and soon the Kindle Fire accounted for half of all Android tablets sold.

Google, Barnes & Noble and others soon joined the tablet market, and when Apple introduced the iPad Mini last year, we knew the age of the mid-sized tablet had arrived. However, instead of getting swept up in the wave, BlackBerry and its PlayBook were largely ignored. Blame it on the initial disastrous launch, or perhaps founder and former CEO Mike Lazaridis. His response to virtually any public criticism has been legendarily poor.

Whatever the reason, not only could BlackBerry not recalibrate, but it also essentially left the PlayBook behind. From what I can tell, Blackberry gave up on QNX and its tablet months ago. (It was all but invisible at the Z10 launch in February.) Would things have turned out differently if Alicia Keys had walked out on stage holding one? Nah.

Will Blackberry ever build another tablet? If Heins can turn BB10 and its flagship phones into a success, then yes. But the signs are not promising. From the earnings statement:

“The smartphone market remains highly competitive, making it difficult to estimate units, revenue and levels of profitability ... Based on the competitive market dynamics and these investments, the company anticipates it will generate an operating loss in the second quarter.”

With this kind of fiscal outlook, it’s unlikely the company will invest heavily in new initiatives like rebooting its 7-inch tablet product line.

So, PlayBook, it was nice knowing you. You were, in fact, impressive and innovative for your time. Your features like cards (at least on a tablet), swipe from bevel, true multitasking, wireless content sharing and more have all been copied by more successful mobile companies.

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